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CAPTAINS, GOVERNORS AND SUPERCARGOES: THE DAVIDSON COLLECTION OF CHINESE ARMORIAL PORCELAIN
英国
12月06日 晚上7点 开拍 /22小时50分
拍品描述 翻译
A RARE CHINESE ARMORIAL 'IMARI' PLATE, KANGXI PERIOD, CIRCA 1705 with the arms of Pitt of Ewerne, Stapleton, Dorset, granted in 1604. Diameter 20cm Davidson Collection no: 20 Provenance: Heirloom & Howard, 43363. A copy of the invoice is avalable This is one of the three earliest Chinese services decorated with British armorials. The service was made for Thomas Pitt, Governor of Fort St. George in Madras 1689-1709. The service consisted of some two hundred pieces of which only saucer dishes (a Chinese shape, without condiment rim), plates and serving dishes of various sizes are known.[1] Occasionally the coat of arms was copied from the matrix of a desk seal or signet ring, resulting in a reversed image. For Thomas Pitt’s service a swivel fob seal was almost certainly sent to China to copy; the decorative cartouche around the arms on the porcelain appears to emulate the metalwork of the seal shank. The arms form an integral part of the overall floral decoration that is unique to the service and are represented only in blue and gold. However, the Pitt crest, A stork argent, beaked and legged proper, is incorrectly placed beneath the shield rather than above and, unusually, is virtually the same size. Without specific instruction, the Chinese painter would not have been aware of the correct placement of the stork crest above the shield if he had been copying a double-faceted swivel seal and the crest had been on the opposing side to the shield. Thomas Pitt’s eldest son, Robert (1680-1727), had joined his father in Madras as a free merchant in India and from there sailed to Canton on several journeys as a supercargo in the early years of the century on ships freighted from Madras rather than London. Possibly he ordered this Pitt armorial service for his father at that time carrying his father’s seal fob. [2]?? “Thomas Pitt (1653-1726), great-nephew of Sir William Pitt to whom the original coat of arms had been granted, had entered the service of the East India Company as a mate on the Lancaster in 1673 but jumped ship on reaching Balasore near Calcutta in the Bay of Bengal, where an English factory had been established in 1640 and which remained a trading post. Despite persistent attempts by the company to call him to account and return him to England, Thomas Pitt continued to trade very successfully as an interloper, one of a number of rebel traders who challenged the monopoly of the East India Company which, though granted by the Royal Charter, had never been confirmed by parliament. Within six years he had made an opportune marriage to Jane Innes, niece of his employer, Matthias Vincent. Vincent was the East India Company representative in Bengal and, despite his official position, also engaged in substantial private trading operations outside the control of the company, taking a commission on both the buying and selling of company goods, a widespread practice that had become a source of considerable irritation and loss of income to company in London. On his return from India with his wife and son in early 1682 on the William and John (another interloping ship carrying a privately funded cargo from which he stood to make a good profit, to the further annoyance of the company), the East India Company procured an order of restraint against Pitt, describing him as “a desperate fellow…who will not stick at doing any mischief that lies in his power,” and dispatched a new agent to India on the Defence, to sort out the irregularities in Bengal and arrest Vincent. Pitt gave them the slip in London the same day. Arriving back at Balasore just before the Defence, he warned Vincent who promptly moved out of British jurisdiction into the Dutch factory compound from where, to the embarrassment of the company, he issued lavish invitations for the new agent’s reception and entertainment. For this new humiliation, Pitt was arrested and fined on his return to England.? Thomas Pitt was already a wealthy young merchant by then. Much of the decade was spent in London, where he kept an establishment in considerable style with living expenses of some £1,000 per year at a time when a baronet was assumed to have an average annual income of £880 per year and a naval officer £80. With an interest in politics as a staunch Whig (the newer of the two political factions that, broadly speaking, represented parliament: the more traditional Tories still supported the monarchy), he purchased a landed property near Salisbury, the first step toward entitlement to run for parliament. This brought him the constituency of Old Sarum, an ancient and abandoned iron-age fort outside Salisbury, together with a parliamentary platform that remained with the Pitt family throughout the century, becoming the means by which a number of descendants, including his grandson, a future prime minister, entered the House of Commons. In an age of politics by preferment, Old Sarum was later to become the most notorious of the so-called ‘rotten boroughs,” providing two parliamentary seats but having only four houses and no voters, while an emerging city such as Manchester was without representation. From parliament Pitt was able to criticize the Old East India Company and was influential in promoting the new joint-stock company. After further interloping expeditions (despite remaining a member of parliament) a reconciliation finally took place and in 1689 he was appointed by the newly-formed company to the post of Governor of Fort St George in Madras. It was during this period, while also trading as a diamond merchant ( a popular and profitable venture since it enabled merchants in India to transfer fortunes back to England without difficulty and at little cost while receiving private consignments of silver bullion in return as new capital), that he purchased a raw diamond of some 400 carats for the sum of 48,00 pagodas (the old currency unit of south India, also minted under license by the East India Company in Madras) or £24,000. He eventually sold it in 1717 to the Duc d’Orleans, Regent of France for £125,000 (about £16.5 million today), a four-fold profit on his investment. Governor Pitt’s second son, also called Thomas, was created Baron Londonderry in 1719 through his wife an heiress and ordered an armorial dinner service in 1720. [3] Thomas, Baron Londonderry was raised to Earl of Londonderry in 1726. Meanwhile Governor Pitt’s grandson William by his eldest son Robert, was to become William Pitt “the Elder” (1708-1778) and Earl of Chatham, Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs and War, later to become Prime Minister. His second son, the great grandson of Governor Pitt, became Prime Minister for nineteen years and was known as William Pitt “the Younger” (1759-1806).? ? Provenance: by descent in the family of Thomas Pitt. [1]? David S. Howard, Chinese Armorial Porcelain 1974 Volume I, Style B1 p 176 [2]? Angela Howard, The Pitt Services: Porcelain for a Political Dynasty, American Ceramic Journal Vo. XVIII p51 – 81 ref p 55 [3]? A. Howard p55-6 & Sir Cornelius Dalton, The Life of Thomas Pitt, Cambridge University Press, 1915Condition ReportUV LIGHT INSPECTED. Presents well. Hairline to the rim approximately 2.5cm., at 5 o’clock. Four other minor restored chips around the rim. Please see additional photographs.

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